Originally from: Burkie
                        
Dear Friends: Just sat down and looked back through old computer files...and oila'! found some old files I thought I had lost. One was an extracted time line of the FMD World-wide outbreaks from 1999, 2000, 2001, as reported by IAH-Pirbright to the OIE. Unfortunately, when I first made this little file up, it was alphabetized, by country...so I did a little computer tweaking...and what do you know....re-organized it by creating a dated timeline. Combined with other gleanings from the net and newspapers, it makes some very interesting reading....

1. IAH did a lousy job of identifying virus samples sent to them to identify. 2. They did a terrible job of timely forwarding to OIE
3. OIE did a lousy job of promptly posting these outbreaks
4. There are still "holes" of emptiness on my spreadsheet, as in several cases, virus strains were never clearly identified, especially as in the case of the Argentinian situation, where both Type O And A were said to be the causal virus of their outbreak....while Brazil and Uruguay both vaccinated against Type O. 5. What really "gets" me is both our own Peter Mason, Plum Island and your Nick J. Knowles, IAH-Pirbright, both stated, as early as 1998, that FMD viruses were changing....so how did that change occur? Did they happen to "make them change?"

And did they release these to shape economic and political futures?

6. And finally, Knowles was responsible for developing this whole reporting system and organizational structure of identification and reporting in 1999 in Brazil, Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay, as well as others. SENASA, INTA and PANAFTOSA to name a few of these DEFRA-like organizations. (And with full-funding to establish these from FAO?)

So, it makes a hick like me wonder out loud! If they had the virus strains at their labs, what's to keep them....or Certain FAO people from purposefully releasing virus? After all, the one consistent bit of information is that these individuals were AWARE of changes and each place that Knowles went, an outbreak resulted! (Every where that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go).

Several ways to interpret these travels of these people....but it is really odd....especially when Type O was in the Philippines, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, then on to Georgia, Russia, then suddenly shows up in South America, then on to the U.K, Ireland, France and the Netherlands.

Let's just say I am suspicious.....especially after Knowles and Mason gave their presentations about all this at the USAHA (U.S. Animal Health Association's) meeting on October 24, 2000, just after it was apparent that there were outbreaks occurring in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay.

Oddly, peculiarly, FMD strain id was never clearly reported...Urugayan beef was banned, but Argentina was allowed to special ship 2,000 tons of beef by air freight to "meet their export quota, to the U.S.A. approved by our own former Secretary of Agriculture, Dan Glickman, on Dec. 23, 2000, when Argentina was "hiding the fact" from the rest of the world that they had a tremendous FMD outbreak within their country at that time!

Food for Thought –
I just wish I could attend this meeting to see just what it is the IAH people have to say.

I am sure of one thing.....the World Animal Health boys have had a lot of help from some others to create their present policies.

They've learned that diseases like FMD can change the economics of whole countries at the detriment of one country and the gain of organizations like the EU, with it's Hilton Quota.

I don't imagine this will change in the future, so I expect more of the same to come.

All the Best,

Burkie in Kansas